I talk with a lot of people about money. I know the inner workings of lots of people’s money lives, and while the popular consensus is that everyone wants to be rich, what I actually find is that most people just want to have enough money to live comfortably.
So this article is about how to have enough money to do the things you want to do and stop worrying about money.
I used to not have enough money. I went from having more than enough income to spending more than I earned to being in dire financial straights, and kept repeating the pattern over and over again. So I get it.
After working with hundreds of people to improve their financial lives, here’s my best advice, for how to take steps that I took toward my own financial freedom. You can do these right here, right now, no matter your life’s circumstances:
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Decide to Have Enough Money
Out of all the things that are well within your control, the ability to decide your own fate might as well be one of the unalienable rights guaranteed with your humanity.
There are all kinds of ways to decide to have enough money, but perhaps the simple truth is this: you can simply decide.
The word “decide” literally means to come to a resolution, to make a choice from a number of alternatives, and to cut yourself off from any other alternative.
When you decide you have enough money, then you train your brain to make the decision true. Suddenly, you can begin to build the mindset lens that allows you to see what you have, to attract opportunities and possibilities that enable you to have enough, and to create proof so can leave your old results behind.
There’s a great quote that’s commonly attributed to Goethe. It is often invoked when talking about commitment.
The kind of magic he talks about can only come to your aid once you’ve decided to set out on the journey of finding your own truth and power.
It goes like this:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
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Automate your finances
I teach a system of automation that changes the experience of having enough money. You might want to think about it as the game of having enough, and knowing you have enough.
In this game, I ask each of the players to go to the bank or credit union of their choice and open a simple set of accounts.
It can sometimes take a long time for people to actually act on this coaching, but as soon as they do, within months, they send me testimonial letters about how, now, they experience having enough money.
The coaching is simple, too. I recommend that my students set up a series of multiple accounts, only one of them with a debit card for spending.
The other accounts are a combination of savings and checking accounts that are, quite literally, channels into which money will flow and accumulate.
Here are the accounts I recommend, along with the verbatim names I ask my students to put on their accounts:
- Yesterday’s Promises: for existing agreements about rent, mortgage, property taxes, cable, utilities, cell phone, and other recurring monthly charges. This is a checking account, and if you choose to get a debit card for this account, it isn’t one you carry around with you. In this account goes the amount that covers the bills.
- Today’s Fun: for anything you want to spend your money on. The funds in this account are all yours to use at your discretion, but as soon as they’re gone, you have to make an agreement with yourself that you won’t “borrow” from any other accounts.
- Tomorrow’s Dreams: These are your savings accounts, I recommend these:
- All things Auto: This account is the savings account for your next car, as well as any care and maintenance of the current vehicle. If you don’t have a car, you don’t have this account.
- Curveball: I know the power of language, so I’m really careful about the words I use around my money.My TEDx talk is titled “The Surprising Power of Language to Make You Rich”.I don’t like emergencies or emergency rooms, so I don’t have an emergency fund, nor do I recommend my students have one.What I do suggest is a curveball account. It’s not just semantics, it’s an entirely different context.When I think about curveballs, I know I can learn how to swing my financial bat and still hit the ball out of the park. I can practice for those kinds of pitches.I don’t have to be afraid of an unknown or unknowable future. I can anticipate that there will be things I haven’t thought of that will sometimes surface, and I can have funds set aside to meet those opportunities as they arise.
In the course, we talk about how to fund these accounts and some of the ways to manage money you know is coming your way, so that it can pool and then flow through these accounts to give you the experience of having enough until the balances grow and you experience having more than enough.
I know automation works. I credit this system of accounts with totally transforming my financial reality. Once an epic over spender, now, I am constantly surprised by the balances in this set of accounts.
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Practice
Practice having enough.
You might have to break old patterns and habits of overspending or under earning.
Now that you’ve decided to have enough, and you’re staying in the game, what lessons are you learning?
Practice gratitude.
Whatever you have, it’s more than many, maybe even most, and less than someone else.
We exist on a spectrum of human possibilities. Be grateful for what you have.
Practice setting goals and achieving them.
It’s okay to be haunted by your own desires to achieve in this world.
It’s okay to make big declarations about how much money you want to make or earn or give away.
It’s okay to set goals and dream big and want whatever it is you want in your one true beautiful life.
For me, wealth is well-being. I’m inspired to empower you financial freedom.
To join me on the journey, please become a member of the Facebook group, Profit Boss®.